


Hope and Wyn

by lesbrarians



Series: Dorks and Disasters [2]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Aasimar, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Gen, Gorgons (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 02:22:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19714351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbrarians/pseuds/lesbrarians
Summary: Bronwyn Icaria and Hopernica Sythx are hard at work on their graduate studies, and both experiments are more than a little unethical.





	Hope and Wyn

" _God_ , she vexes me!" Bronwyn burst out, for what felt like (and probably was) the thousandth time. She plucked at the tricolored feathers on her shoulders -- not hard enough to actually pull them out, but enough to serve as an outlet for her frustration and resentment. 

"Who?" Hope, chewing her ever-present gum, blew a perfect bubble. Of course she knew exactly who Bronwyn was talking about, but if her bestie needed to obsess about the same issue yet again, she'd play along. 

Hopernica Sythx and Bronwyn Icaria were in their office in the Alcina building at Padronia school. Well, at least they called it "their office." In actuality, it was the office reserved for Professor Herdithalanas and his graduate students. But the good professor (a dubious title for the morally grey elf, although Bronwyn and Hope adored him) _did_ spend most of his time in his personal office, when he was not teaching a class or working in the lab with his grad students. He valued his privacy, and besides, he needed to hold office hours for the desperate students who were failing his classes. As for the other graduate students who were entitled to use the space, Professor Herdithalanus had only currently taken three graduate students under his wing, and the third member of their cohort elected to do most of her work at home, much to Bronwyn and Hope's satisfaction. 

"That little-- that little-- _tart!_ " Bronwyn stabbed her pen at the "procedures" section of her dissertation. She was attempting to get some work done on her dissertation, even thought it was all too easy to skive off when she was alone in the office with Hope. She needed _something_ to show Professor Herdithalanus during their next meeting -- but working on it was just putting her in a fouler mood and reminding her that Vitari _Meltuarorraath_ was responsible for wrecking her study. Her test subject needed to be undisturbed whenever Bronwyn surreptitiously put her to sleep so that she could record her resistance and immunity to the spells over time. Zan's new friend, Vitari, and Bronwyn's new worst nightmare had a nasty habit of waking her up, and if Bronwyn was being perfectly honest with herself, she didn't like the amount of time Zan spent Vitari regardless. 

Hope completely forgot all about the promise she had made to herself to be a good friend and not say shit. She popped her bubble and burst out into laughter. " _What?_ " she said, swinging her clunky boots off of her desk. She had abandoned all pretense of work for the day. "Babe, I'm sorry, have you _looked at her_ recently? Those fuckin' coke bottle glasses? Or even talked to her? Vitari is a _nerd_ , she's the farthest thing from a tart! _Tart._ " The gorgon shook her head. Her lime green snakes, loosely gathered into a high ponytail, wagged in unison. "You sound like you got possessed by a Victorian ghost for a hot second there."

"She's a tiefling with a succubus ancestor," Bronwyn said. "You _know_ it's coming. Plus, she's totally seducing Zan." She was almost 100% sure that Hope rolled her eyes behind those designer shades of hers, but she chose to ignore it. "Like, why else would someone who's so -- heh -- who's so _lazy_ she somehow gets CafFey delivered to her, and they don't even _do_ delivery, suddenly start going out on CafFey dates to 'study with Vitti'? And she's got those, like--" Bronwyn cupped the air in front of her chest. "She's stacked, alright? You think Zan's not immune to that? There's something going on between them, mark my words, and I hate it."

"I know, I know, tough break." Hope gave the world weary sigh of someone who had spent too many hours placating her single-minded friend. "She's not worth it, Wyn," she said, her hair snakes hissing as she slithered out the 's' sound.

Bronwyn huffed and put her pen down, spinning her chair around. "Yeah, I guess you're right." Her begrudging agreement did not mean she was going to let go of the issue any time soon. She could, however, temporarily set her emotions aside. "You're really not doing any work today, huh?"

Hope slid her cat’s eye sunglasses down the bridge of her nose and looked at her best friend with those hypnotizingly pupiless eyes. Bronwyn wasn’t concerned, Hope wore mirrored contact lenses when she wasn’t actively intending to petrify someone. The glasses were partly a holdover from before the days before she'd discovered contact lenses, and partly a fashion statement. 

"Nah. I'm kinda hitting a wall with it. My methods aren't really giving me the data I need to support my conclusions." Hope drew her feet up onto her chair and crossed her legs, pulling the hem of her dress over her knees. "Like-- look, I know you know some of this already, but can I just kinda talk this out at you?"

"Yeah, let's hear it."

"So the whole point of my research is that I think petrification can have groundbreaking medical applications, that it can save or prolong lives. My theory is that if someone's in medical crisis, you can petrify them until they can be treated. So like, short term, if they're poisoned but don't have an antidote on hand, petrify the affected body part until you can get an antidote. Long term? Hell, maybe they have a disease that there's no cure for. It could be a more advanced and safe form of cryogenics -- petrify their entire body until a cure can be found. So you know, I just have to prove that this works, that this is a sound practice. If you petrify someone in a medical crisis, what is their condition going to be when they come out of it? Are you doing more harm than good? There hasn't been _any_ academic studies on petrification of anyone who's not perfectly healthy -- _ethics._ "

Bronwyn rolled her eyes. "Ugh. We would be so much more advanced as a society if people just let go of their moral hangups and stopped letting pesky _ethics_ get in the way of research. Like, how many life-changing things could we have learned but haven't, because people are too afraid of 'crossing a line'?" 

Hope slapped her knee. " _Exactly!_ So we only have, like, word of mouth. You know, you hear about wars involving gorgons, and someone who's bleeding out gets petrified. Someone finds them later, uses some stone salve on them, but it's too late to save them. Is that because the petrification exacerbated the damage, or was it just bad timing?"

"It's not a controlled environment."

"Yup. Which is why Professor H. is so great, he gives us the space we need to run these experiments." Hope pressed two fingers to her lips in a kiss and raised them in the air in a peace sign. "Thanks, Prof.""

Bronwyn cackled. "Is that 'rest in _peace_ '? He's not _dead!_ "

Hope snickered. "Iunno, just beaming the thought out to him, wherever he is on campus. So you know, I've tested the basic principles on a few different animals, monitoring wound size and shape, measuring poison levels before and after petrification, blah blah blah. So I have a lot of good data there. And Professor H. thinks that's good enough, but..." Hope sighed and blew another translucent pink bubble. "I don't know. You know how every gorgon has their own stone composition? Like, not just the different _types_ of stones that we can all make, but the actual makeup of the stone itself?"

Bronwyn nodded dutifully.

"The composition of the stone shifts slightly with magical blood. That's a factor I didn't think of until just now, and it's bothering me. And what's-her-face is hogging all the research budget when it comes to experimenting on magical creatures, so Professor H. already said no to that. So obvs I wanna have a person for a subject, but-- _what_ is that look for?"

A most unangelic grin had spread across Bronwyn's face. "Hope. _Hope_. You need to maim and petrify an actual person for your study. I need to get Vitari away from Zan for _my_ study. This is _perfect!"_

Hope mirrored Bronwyn's glee with a serpentine smile of her own. She steepled her fingers. "Alright. Alright. That _is_ perfect. Solves both of our problems. So say we can convince Prof. H. to let us do it -- how are we gonna do this? What do we petrify? 'Cause no, I can't turn all of her into a statue," she said, anticipating Bronwyn's response.

"Her head," Bronwyn said with a snicker. "Make her shut up."

"Tempting and all, but she probably won't be able to bear the weight of that much peridot. And it would probably incapacitate her, which was Professor H's whole beef with the idea when I first brought it up to him."

"Fine," Bronwyn said. "Her tits, then."

Hope snorted. "You and this chick's tits, I swear to god! I mean, I _could_ , even if it's not an ideal location. I have done really delicate petrification work before -- like the other day, I petrified a pig completely, except for its circulatory system, pulmonary system, and its brain. So it's doable, even if it's near her heart. But I dunno if that'll fly with the prof. Her arm or her leg would make more sense."

Bronwyn rolled her eyes and flung a pen at Hope. "Why even ask me for my opinion if you're just gonna shut down all my fun ideas?"

Hope snatched the pen mid-flight. "Just being practical, babe. We want this to happen, right?"

Bronwyn envisioned it: a short, busty tiefling limping down a hallway, her petrified leg dragging on the ground. She lagged behind a sallow-skinned githvyrik, no match for her friend's long, lanky legs. _Wait for me_ , Vitari called helplessly, but Zan was already swallowed up by the throng of students that swarmed the hallway. 

"Yes." A smirk played at the corner of Bronwyn's glossy lips. "Yes, we do."


End file.
